It's Probably Blood Magic
by karyra
Summary: Faelyn Lavellan isn't Inquisitor. Dorian Pavus hasn't left Tevinter yet. Thus sets the stage when Faelyn Lavellan, instead of going to the Conclave is sold into slavery by his Keeper. His new master nearly kills him, but Faelyn escapes only to be taken in by Dorian Pavus. Between the class struggles and Halward's backwards views, can they both make it out alive?
1. Bleeding Out

His chest burned as each breath felt like agony when he woke, and he sputtered out yet another breath. A lightly decorated ceiling hung above him, the dragon-like imagery told the elf suffering on the bed that he remained in Tevinter. Another day of being alive in this godsforsaken place, he thought as he tried to twist himself into an upright position. Every movement became a new wave of fiery pain, and as he slowly forced himself through it, he realised that he wasn't alone in the room. Being upright allowed him to take in the dark red and yellow hues of nobility and sheer Tevinter-ness that he already hated.

The elf held his chest as he slowly stood up, dragging the blanket with him for a source of warmth. The slow, painful movement continued as he dragged himself to the window to try and see what the time of day it was. Below, the brown stone seemed to be beaten down by many nobles going to and fro, and it was much too light out to bother making any sort of escape attempt. A cage without bars or lock, it seemed.

Faelyn Lavellan, trapped in Tevinter, the elf thought to himself as he stood there by the window. The pain of standing slowly turned his vision red, and the realization took the little amount of strength he had been using to stand, and Faelyn began to fall. He felt an arm wrap around him and helped to slow his fall to the floor. At least his captor or rescuer -Faelyn wasn't sure yet, as last night had been a fag of panic and desperation- wasn't going to leave him to his own devices, but Faelyn could feel his chances at escape slip away even further as the strong arm held him up.

"Really? You grab me in the middle of the night by my ankle, whisper help and then expect to wander around the next day?" the voice sounded higher than Faelyn expected, and more joyful. It teased him, as if to say, 'you will never leave here, but at least you have a master who knows what jokes are'. After a long pause the speaker continued on, "I would have thought that at least worth a comment or two."

Faelyn just stood there, leaning against the stranger's weight. The arm was comforting, but all he wanted now was simply to be empty for once. All that hate, all that adrenaline from last night, he wanted it all to fade away. He'd thought that he'd managed to leave, or somehow find a free elf that would help him escape. No, he'd gotten lucky and found himself at the mercy of another Tevinter noble.

The wounds from his last master were starting to drip through the bandages and onto the nicely carpeted floor.

The stranger just made a quick exhale and shook his head, probably at the fact that his new guest was bleeding onto the carpet. "There's really nothing out there you know," he said, "just Minrathous."

"I just want to go home," Faelyn said at last, sounding as broken as he felt.

"And where is that, exactly?" Faelyn could almost feel the laugh in the stranger's voice and it made him bitter again. Bitter and angry at this whole thing for happening, but most of all he felt stupid for not doing what he should have been.

"Wycombe, in the Free Marches," Faelyn said, wondering how close he could come to Tranquil. He would practically need to be completely free of dreams or emotions to keep carrying on in Tevinter. He'd heard so many horror stories, but he'd always hoped it wouldn't really be this bad. But it was, it was that bad and now he was paying for it.

"Mmm," the voice made this sound as though the stranger were curious about Faelyn. Faelyn knew from experience that this was not true. Tevinter mages and nobles didn't care about elves or people. Slaves were slaves and Faelyn could only hope for the best in terms of his treatment in the future. "Right, we should get you cleaned up then. A waste of effort to drag you home and convince Father and my favorite suitor to save you if you die now."

Together they half walked, half dragged to the bed, where Faelyn had been sat down gently. The stranger moved away and Faelyn could finally get a good look at the man. Dark hair and hazel eyes met his and Faelyn found himself looking at his feet and trying to curl up as much as he could. What was in the water that made people in Tevinter prettier? Probably blood magic, Faelyn decided. Seemed that everything else was, so it made sense.

"You clearly have no interest in being cleaned up, I guess. Otherwise I wouldn't have been the only one actually walking," the man said, continuing his one sided conversation.

Faelyn slowly shifted over onto his side and covered himself with the blanket, the pain subsided as he laid there under the blanket.

The man sighed. "Look, I know that things for elves in Tevinter are..." the man said, stopping to try and pick the best words, "less than ideal. However, I don't want to hurt you. Let's try to get proper introductions in before we judge each other? I am Dorian Pavus, Altus mage."

Faelyn weighed his options for what he could do, and decided that unless there was some magic binding his name, then it couldn't hurt. "Faelyn," he mumbled into the blanket, "Faelyn Lavellan."

"Ah good," Dorian said from beside him, "and here I thought you'd stay silent just to spite me."

"Thought about it. Decided that you'd use blood magic to make me talk."

"Is that... a joke?" Dorian asked, the laugh evident in his voice. Whether it was from relief or the actual joke, Faelyn couldn't tell.

A beat of silence followed, as Faelyn didn't reply to that. He wasn't sure if it had been a joke either.

"So, I've never seen an elf with markings like yours before, where are you from?" Dorian said, trying to hold up the conversation for a bit longer. More silence ensued, so he sighed and stood up. "I have to get to my studies. I'll make sure that you're looked after, so rest up and you can tell us what happened in time." He rested his hand carefully on the blanket, adjusting it so that he could see Faelyn's face a bit more clearly.

Faelyn was only half awake, but he could feel the tiredness down to his bones, and he hoped the nap would help him block out more of the pain. A hand rested on the blankets for a bit longer than Faelyn would have preferred, but somehow it was comforting to know that not everyone was going to try and kill him. Faelyn didn't realize that a shadow had been over him until Dorian moved and left to do whatever work he had to do as a noble. It was probably stand there, do blood magic, and kill slaves he didn't like.

The light was uncomfortable, and Faelyn drew the blanket back over his face to try and sleep some before something went wrong again. His fingers lingered on the bandages across his chest, feeling the weight of them as though trying to figure out how badly he'd been hurt. He remembered a large knife, cutting and cutting. Grabbing a stranger's ankle in the night, and then he didn't remember much else. Anything earlier he just wanted to ignore and stuff into the deepest part of his mind.

But they lingered at the front, like shades and demons waiting to strike.

Dorian was writing his newest study out on parchment, but ultimately he couldn't find anything that made sense in the spellwork or the writing that he'd just done. He tapped the quill on the side of the parchment as if it would reveal the meaning and what he was trying to accomplish last night before he'd decided to get some fresh air. As he pondered it, he heard a knock at his door. Dorian sighed and put the parchment down on his desk.

"Where's the patient, love?" a blonde haired woman said as she stood in his doorway. He was sure that anyone else would think that she was beautiful, but Dorian simply found her irritating and a reminder of the expectations his father put on him.

"What, not even a hello for the man you're to marry?" the flirtatious attitude was easy, and it wasn't hard to fake interest in her. He'd been doing it all his life, so it was only natural that he'd learned to blend in to not cause trouble. "Frankly, it's insulting that my future wife isn't signing praises about me."

"Well, when you learn to be something worth singing in the streets about, I'll do that, but until then, I believe we have a half-dead elf to see," she smiled.

"Not half dead," Dorian said as he led her up the stairs. "I had a somewhat pleasant conversation with him this morning. Although, to call it a conversation is going a bit far, I admit."

"I'm surprised he said anything. It was a darn miracle that he survived," the woman said, pulling gloves from her bag. If he was bleeding from his wounds again she'd need something between her hands and the blood. Blood was disgusting.

"I'm still surprised that you could recognize the spell that did that to him, it was powerful blood magic and well hidden. You haven't told me what it was, though."

"The spell wasn't finished, and you were on the other side of the room. Gagging, if I recall correctly." She laughed at the memory. She didn't answer his question, but Dorian was distracted enough to not notice.

Dorian, meanwhile, adjusted his collar at the memory. He'd never been fond of blood, but when it came out of a dead thing his, what he called, slight discomfort at the sight of blood became manageable. However, it had been so much, and so fast. It'd been all he could do the previous night to replenish the blood the elf had lost through magic. He cleared his throat and said, "I was magically exhausted. I had to try and keep him alive to see you."

"Ah, so you had a plan? Because it looked more like you ran into the house with a nearly dead elf in your arms and cried to me, 'save him, please, Orana, please save him'." At the last part she put on a mocking tone, clasping her hands together and dramatically waving them around.

Dorian blushed and said, "I did not. I knew you were a skilled Spirit Healer and that you would be at my home so I asked politely if you would please help this man." He turned his face towards the wall of the hallway they had just entered. It was posh and lined with flowers. Dorian liked to call it the Guilt Hallway. It was mostly thanks to the gaze of many a Pavus man who had his portrait painted and hung in the hallway. He wondered why the painter chose for all of them to have an expression akin to looking upon Mabari waste, but chose not to say anything to his father. Besides, it was like they knew about Dorian. The real Dorian.

"Riiiiight," Orana said. "Your home is a maze I swear. I'll be glad to reach our destination quickly, before one of these portraits makes you realize that we are a floor below where we wish to be."

They came to a door that was still slightly open from Dorian's exit mere hours earlier. Dorian wondered if it had only been hours, because the time spent attempting to study felt more like most of a day. Dorian pushed it the rest of the way open for Orana, and let her move past him. She would work better undisturbed, so he elected to go back downstairs, and he was halfway out the door before Orana stopped him.

"You're a familiar face, Dorian. Get over here so that if he wakes up we can try to get more information out of him. I'd like to know what these markings-" Orana stopped mid-sentence and backed away. "Shit. He's from the South."

"What?"

"The markings are used by... what's the word? Dayish? A band of Elhven trying to preserve their old ways. How the hell he got up here to Minrathous is mystery, but damn it this isn't going to be easy when he wakes up. Probably a slave too. Dorian, you stole a slave," Orana said as she began to pace the room.

"I believe that you'll be sought after too, for repairs and doing magic upon another person's slave, Orana," Dorian said. He masked the panic with glibness and jokes. It was as good as stealing property. He sighed and tried to come up with something. "We can claim that we didn't know and simply were trying to help him survive. We were good samaritans or something."

"Well, if no one has made any waves to look for him, then he was probably bought illegally. Maybe while in the South," Orana shook her head and moved back to in front of her patient. "Which would make it an illegal purchase since slavery is illegal down there, and the new Fereldan King is raising a fuss down there by cracking down on slavers."

Dorian slowly moved behind her, and decided that studying the nearest item would probably prove more useful than him standing in the background gagging again. It had been a mirror, and quick check in it proved that yes, his hair was still impeccable despite him not really bothering to style it since yesterday morning. He considered it a small victory on his part.

A pained moan turned his gaze just long enough to see Faelyn starting to wake up again.

"You're awake," Orana said.

Faelyn, still tangled in a blanket and in severe pain, somehow managed to move quick enough to wrap himself further in the comforter and fall on the side of the bed opposite of Orana. Dorian felt like there should have been quiet sobbing from that side of the bed.

"Well, as far as first introductions go, mine was still better," Dorian preened from his corner.

"You'll reopen your wounds, uh... sir?" Orana tried to console the terrified elf.

"I'm not here I'm not here..." it was more a quick prayer to some unknown god as opposed to a reply. Faelyn clearly had been through a lot if he was already reduced to such a mess.

"Faelyn, it's Dorian. It's okay, look, I don't know what you heard, but not all Tevinter mages are blood mages," Dorian said as he put down the mirror. "I'm not a blood mage, and Orana isn't either."

" _She_ was, and she did this. I won't go back, I won't go back!" Faelyn said, and as Dorian rounded the corner to see him, Faelyn tried to run for the door.

However, before he could get too far away, Dorian stepped on the blanket Faelyn was still wrapped up in and tripped the elf. This caused Faelyn to cry out in pain and curl up on the floor where he had fallen. Dorian winced in sympathy. Orana was already moving to offer more help to the fallen elf. Dorian thought the whole scene slightly comical, but Orana would probably slap him if he laughed right now.

"Help me get him back on the bed," Orana ordered.

"But he's bleeding again and I don't want-"

Orana gave him a look and Dorian silently helped her place the elf back onto the guest room's bed. He faintly wondered if he knew someone who could get blood out of silk sheets. Then again, given how gossipy and rumor-obsessed the other Altus were, Dorian decided that new sheets would be simpler and he could just burn the old ones. Dorian stood there for a while, watching Orana slowly work to heal the worst of the wounds and then begin to remove the bandages around Faelyn's chest.

Faelyn gripped them tightly and didn't let her try to remove them, "no."

"Faelyn," Orana said, "you just about had your chest sliced open. If I don't change these out that entire wound will get worse. If you're worried about modesty, nobody in this room is vaguely interested in seeing your chest or exploiting you."

Faelyn turned a deeper shade of red, but relented.

Dorian raised an eyebrow. "It's a chest. It's not like a man's chest is going to be all that scandalous anyway. I mean, with your physique some of the ladies might swoon, but that'll be it."

Orana gave him a look that simply said 'you're not helping' and went back to gathering up the bandages.

"What?"

"You're not very good at bedside manner, is all," she said. Once she coiled up the bandages, she made them burst into flame in her hand.

Faelyn pressed himself into the headboard of the bed so hard and fast, Dorian wondered if he would become a fixed part of it. Dorian had a thought and quickly turned away to hide his blushing face from the two. He had been doing so well thus far, but it was such a stupid little perverted thought that made him blush?

"You could go if you want to, Dorian," Orana said, "but we're almost done. It'll just be spell recovery from here on out, and the chest wound should heal in that time. It'll be tender for a while, so I hope we manage to not send him back to wherever he was before. I wish knew more about laws to try and see if we can get him under the Pavus house instead of his old one..."

"It can't have been that bad. It might have been an accident..." Dorian said. Nobody treated their slaves this badly, did they?

"He was starved, drugged to the gills, and his chest was sliced apart. Then the last blood magic spell nearly killed him," Orana said. "Fussy maneuvering on your part would probably save his life going forward."

"You're such a bleeding heart, Orana. The slaves are put under decent conditions, and it's better than being poor right? I doubt it's as bad as you think, dear."

Orana didn't say anything, but finished putting the bandages on Faelyn.

Dorian hadn't seen that many slaves being mistreated, in fact he hadn't seen any. So Orana was probably just being overdramatic. It was all probably fine.

Faelyn sat up quickly, holding his chest as though to assure himself that the nightmare was over and... _she_ wasn't slashing apart his chest again. Every breath he took was a bitter, painful reminder that it had really happened. Those months in the small box, and then... and then...

"I heard yelling," Dorian said from the doorway. He was still in his nightclothes, his hair was a mess, but Faelyn could tell he'd attempted to style it before arriving.

"It's was nothing."

"Right, if you could please stop doing nothing, the rest of us need to sleep. Not to mention that sooner or later the servants will catch on that I have you up here," Dorian said, moving deeper into the room.

Faelyn bit his lip and looked away, because the small move was yet another reminder that he wasn't home, that he'd probably be a slave forever. "Sorry about that, I'm working on it."

"Is this about why I found you in the street, bleeding to death?"

Faelyn sunk himself into the blankets to escape Dorian's searching gaze. It didn't really help, but he could pretend that the small protection of the blanket was enough.

"You are incredibly stubborn about talking to me. I bet you talk to Orana all the time," Dorian said, trying to sound pouty.

Faelyn felt guilty only for a moment. He answered, "I don't talk to Tevinters."

"Fair enough, you've probably only heard horror stories about Tevinter."

"I lived a horror story about Tevinter."

Dorian was silent and Faelyn wanted to believe that the other man had left.

"I'm sorry."

"I-," Faelyn said, bundling himself further into the blanket pile he'd formed for himself. "I don't believe you, but thanks for the thought."

"Maybe it'll be better if we try to make each other allies instead of enemies? I could keep you away from whoever hurt you and you become my assistant."

"No. I don't do... blood magic or regular magic. I'm not a mage, I doubt I'd be any help."

"I do need someone to fetch my books and go over my notes from time to time. As my assistant you'd still be a slave," Dorian started to say before Faelyn moved just enough so that he would be able to glare at the Tevinter Mage, "but only legally. I'll give you an allowance and help you. Unless you just want to go home?"

Faelyn thought about the face the Keeper made as he was dragged away. There was no home left him there. Faelyn covered his face with the blanket again and replied, "I'll stay."

"Good. Then we'll have to ask you about various bits of your history and where you're from. Of course I'll have to work on your Tevinter as well. How much do you know about spellwork?"

"I'm not a mage. We're not allowed to study that if we're not a mage."

"Right. I'll see if we can find you a few sample books for spellwork and then a crash course in..." Dorian rambled on for a while, pacing as he tried to figure out all the details. Faelyn didn't really understand all of it, but he was reminded of a librarian he'd met in Wycombe.

"Uhm, why are you bothering with all this?"

"Because I need an assistant and you need a place to stay. A fair trade off, I say." Dorian stopped for a moment to yawn. "Right, it's late and we have a lot to do starting tomorrow. Sleep well, Mister Lavellan."

Faelyn watched the strange mage leave, but found himself wondering what exactly he'd just agreed to. On one hand, he's just given himself into slavery again, but on the other he was going to be working with a man who was the opposite of his last... owner. Faelyn was still trying to figure out if it was a win or loss on his part.

As he laid back to try and sleep again, he remembered his last day in clan Lavellan. He'd just returned from Wycombe, having sold some of the goods from the craftsman and making a tidy profit. He filled with dread as he realized he'd forgotten to change back into his 'approved' attire, and that a human was hanging around the camp. Faelyn quickly tried to hide from her, but all too soon her hand was on his collar.

"This one," the horrible woman had said. He should have known from her attire she was Tevinter, but all he wanted was to be lot go of. He wanted to run from his Keeper, because he'd be punished for not changing.

Instead, she looked him over with a cold eye, as though she were appraising the worth of livestock instead of a fellow member of her clan. She gave him a price too, and the Tevinter woman smiled and nodded. She waved her hand and his head got cloudy and he grew tired despite it being the middle of the afternoon. He was about to ask why this was happening when when he felt himself fall to the ground and lose consciousness.

Faelyn didn't understand why she'd used a sleep spell until he woke up in a small compartment in her carriage, and called him her new toy by speaking through the walls. The thought that he had become property had shaken him to his core, but it wasn't until later that the horrid reality had set in. When he tried to stretch out he found himself hitting walls. Even trying to shift to a more comfortable position was a challenge.

He'd screamed himself hoarse in that small compartment, and he sat there in the dark, completely alone in the world. The only thing soothing about the ride was the soft rocking back and forth. Otherwise he knew nothing of his ultimate destination, and the motives of this new woman. There wasn't even enough space to really stretch out properly. So he laid there in the dark. Waiting.

Waiting for months on end.

He wondered if he'd died in the dark compartment, and this was the Fade.


	2. Bleeding Hearts

"What the hell did you do, Dorian?" Orana yelled, pacing Dorian's study.

"Well, I went for a drink," Dorian began.

"Which ended up having you hire the elf. Dorian, there was _one thing_ you could not do. And that was keep him here, because the true owner of that elf is gonna show up and we are going to have to hand over the elf. You know why, Dorian?"

"Is it because I don't own the elf in question?" Dorian replied, barely glancing up from his scroll.

"It is because you don't own the elf in question, yes." Orana said, slowly clapping her hands at him to try and mock him. "And now, we're all going to jail. Or pay out the guards to keep it under wraps, whatever. Point is, Dorian, we are now housing _stolen property._ "

"If we can make a case-"

"There is. No. Case. We took an injured slave, healed him, and then you called him yours. Stolen. Property." Orana said, her mouth now nearly frothing with rage, "please at least tell me that you haven't done anything else incredibly stupid."

"Not that I can remember, no."

"Is that you actually can't remember or that you didn't do anything," Orana said, looking at Dorian with a judgemental stare.

"The former, actually. Now, instead of stomping around my study, shouldn't you be doing your own... whatever it is that Spirit Healers study?" Dorian waved his hand dismissively at Orana, and returned to his papers.

"I'm bringing in Felix. He knows how you usually get out of a scrape like this," Orana said, stomping out the study.

"Do not do this, Orana, if Felix finds out I've been out drinking again," Dorian said as he stood from his chair, "he's going to do that thing with his face. You know the one? The one that makes you feel as though a trip to a demon's lair would have been more preferable than seeing it? He's going to make that face, and then I will be ashamed of myself."

"Dorian, you are the person who needs to be shamed right now because I do not want to have my father be brought in on this..." Orana waved her hands around, as if trying to grasp the right word from midair, "escapade."

"And what escapade is that, Dorian?" a new voice asked from the doorway.

The smell of breakfast broke the dream and he opened his eyes to the harsh light of morning through the window. Apparently today he'd be that Tevinter jerk's assistant. To say the thought of being a slave again made Faelyn uncomfortable was putting it lightly. He groaned at the window before noticing the items on the nightstand.

It was breakfast, and some healing poultices. With the added bonus of a note. Faelyn figured it would be best to eat first, that way he could ignore the whole stupid situation for longer. He wanted to ignore his lack of freedom for as long as possible, but even as he shifted to sit up and eat, he knew it was impossible.

The soreness of his limbs and the dull ache in his chest just reminded him of what he would have to adapt to as reality. He opted to read the note while eating, instead of his original plan. It was written in neat script, and for a moment he was convinced that Orana had written it.

 _Please meet me downstairs when you wake. We'll have to work on you sleep schedule. Try not to bleed on anything._

 _Dorian Pavus_

Faelyn crumpled the note and threw it down. Dorian certainly was eager for Faelyn to begin work as a slave wasn't he? Faelyn rested his head on his hands for a moment, using the memory of his departure from home as his motivation.

It was painful, but Faelyn stood up and tried to eat some of the food provided. He stopped and took a moment to collect his thoughts more before he tried to run away again. He accepted this deal made by Dorian and he had to deal with the consequences. Besides, it wasn't like he could go home anymore. He couldn't... he couldn't face that sort of look again.

How could his Keeper do that to him? Buy and sell him like a druffalo? He grit his teeth to try and keep himself from crying or breaking down as he processed the thought. His Keeper didn't even want him. His mother, the person he was supposed to trust the most was the person who put him here. In Tevinter.

Faelyn curled his arms around his chest. This wasn't even his body anymore was it? Just another construction made in Tevinter. Gods, the pain from the night was overwhelming, and all he wanted to do was forget everything about it. Thankfully, the bile that had been building up in his throat distracted him long enough for him to throw up into a mostly empty bowl that had previously contained his breakfast.

He slid to the floor, broken and defeated as he appeared to be. He couldn't go home, he couldn't stay here, but it seemed like he was just... out of options. He felt like a trapped rabbit again, fenced in on all sides and with barely enough room to evade the hand that would reach in and break his neck.

"Dammit!" he cried to himself, clutching his sides and chest even tighter, as if it would somehow make it all less real. After a few moments, the silence calmed him down. He could still escape... he just had to... do something eventually. Maybe he'd find some way to escape later on, maybe he could visit Nevarra? Who was he kidding, he hated Nevarra.

"Am I interrupting something?" a voice asked.

Faelyn shakily stood and tried to bow and show respect. Mythal, if he had offended this noble... Faelyn closed his eyes and tried not to imagine it.

"Y-you don't have to do that," the voice said, suddenly nervous. Faelyn didn't recognize it, but kept bowing, he'd rather be bowing to a Tevinter than dead at this point. "I just came up to check, there was yelling and Dorian mentioned something about an elf in his letter..."

Faelyn slowly -the pain was ebbing away thanks to the poultice but his joints still ached- rose from the bow to look at the person who had arrived. The man had a dark complexion, like most of the nobles Faelyn had met thus far, and the beginnings of a wispy mustache around his mouth. The yellow tunic he wore was sitting atop metal scale armor, as though magic wasn't merely enough to protect the mage. His clothing and armor were all spikes and metal, but the man in them looked concerned and empathetic. Faelyn didn't know what to make of the expression on the face of yet another Tevinter.

It was something like seeing an elf side with shems. It didn't happen, but when it did it was like the world was trying to give you a sign. Or it was decidedly trying to be cruel and turn everything upside down.

"I take it you're Faelyn, then?" the Tevinter asked, trying to break the awkward silence.

"... yes."

"I am Felix Alexius, from house Alexius. Dorian studies under my father."

"Okay."

"He wasn't kidding when he said you won't talk a lot. We should get downstairs before Dorian starts throwing fireballs at his father. I figured that two more of the sane ones would cool their heads before long."

Faelyn narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow at the statement. "Why would he start throwing fireballs?" the rest of the thought was that Dorian would get caught by the Templars, but Tevinter welcomed mages with open arms. Faelyn wondered if that was a good thing.

"His father probably brought up Dorian's upcoming engagement with the Leonnes, and Orana was downstairs with him."

"Why would that make him throw a fireball?"

Alexius' face twisted to suppress a laugh at the naive question. "Let's just say Dorian has been working on not being married to a woman for a very long time."

Thankfully, by the time that Faelyn and Alexius managed to get back downstairs fireballs were not being thrown. The bad news was that Orana was trying to mediate the squabble. However, her being the source of the squabble itself made it all the more intense the more she tried to intervene and the feel of magic in the air thickened by the minute.

Thankfully, Halward had the presence of mind to take a look at the people who were arriving and calm down. He smoothed out his robes and took a breath just before the rest could see the pair coming down the stairs. Dorian, on the other hand, was about to throw a candelabra at Halward, but jumped when he saw Alexius and Faelyn. Dorian quickly placed the candelabra back on the table and tried to not look embarrassed.

Faelyn was just grateful he'd managed to find a shirt before coming downstairs. He didn't know these people and had very little reason to want to know more Tevinter mages. Faelyn still wished that he had the privacy he had back home, even though there was very little back there. Faelyn just felt like his skin burned when people looked at him. He'd always felt wrong, and despite what that... unholy demon did to him it didn't go away. The shame was constant, he realized.

Dorian cleared his throat in an attempt to appear civil, "as I was saying, I decided to take on this elf because he seemed qualified-"

"Without considering the impact it will have on house Pavus if we end up stealing a slave? Much less one from the Free Marches? The Ferelden King is already limiting shipments and the smugglers rarely take care of their cargo..." Halward said.

Faelyn remembered the small, dark box that he'd arrived in. The darkness was suffocating, terrible. Faelyn wanted to throw up again at the thought of it. His hands started to shake and Faelyn lost track of the conversation until the group was silent and staring at him.

"Name. I asked your name, boy." Halward said impatiently.

"F-Faelyn. Of Clan Lavellan. Faelyn Lavellan." The sudden snap back to reality left him disoriented and a bit lost, so just just spit out the words that were his name mostly out of habit.

"Your kind have clans?" Halward asked.

"Y-yes sir. There are some nobody has ever-"

"Did I ask?"

"N-no sir." Faelyn looked at his feet and clenched his hands into fists to hide the shaking. He couldn't show fear or he'd be... he'd be...

The images running through his mind were bloody and violent. Demons were everywhere, and they were going to drain his life for something sinister. They were going to slit his wrists and-

"Father, he wasn't bought legally, or Orana would be able to find the records." Dorian interrupted Faelyn's nightmare of a daydream with his usual casual swagger.

"It's been a week since we've found him, Dorian. It's not like I can just magically find records in the Magistrate with a wave of my hand." Orana said as she gared from her position between Dorian and Halward.

"Just ask one of those spirits you summon to do it. It'd be faster."

"That's not how that works. That's not even-"

"We should find some clothes that fit Faelyn," Felix interjected, and the silence after his sentence was overwhelming. "Considering that he's going to be seen with Dorian it's only right to buy the poor guy some clothes. And if Dorian's going to just stay here and argue with-"

"I am not, and we are not letting you dress him up in those horrid yellows and reds you are so fond of."

"Oh please, he'd looks great in yellow," Felix said, turning at stare at Faelyn as though appraising the elf's current appearance. "Maybe gold?"

"Green, obviously he's a spring," Orana argued. "We should go with lots of forest greens. I read somewhere the Dalish like nature or something."

"If he's going to be with me, it'll be blue. Blue compliments me best," Dorian rebutted.

Faelyn was both terrified and grateful that the topic had changed from slaves and how they arrived in Tevinter. Now he just felt like he was being judged for how he looked. He was both happy and upset at this prospect.

Faelyn looked up just long enough to catch Halward staring at him silently. The message in the man's eyes was clear, but there was something else there that frightened Faelyn. Something dark. Something that Faelyn had seen in another Tevinter mage's eyes.

Just before she sliced his chest open.

Faelyn should not have been surprised that he ended up carrying all the clothing that had been bought. He was surprised at the weight and sincere lack of clothing bought for him. Dorian ended up buying two new robes, Orana five new dresses, and Felix bought more of his weird chainmail robes. Faelyn received three new outfits for work and two for casual outings and one for formal events. It ended up being about fifteen boxes total, and with Felix's weird tastes in clothing Faelyn was struggling by the time that the group finished.

The pain was bearable for a while, but thankfully the excuses that the group made to stop from time to time alleviated it. Now Faelyn was struggling just to keep moving through the pain. Every step became a small endeavor of its own, and the walk was nothing short of the odyssey itself.

"Dorian you're going to end up killing your slave that you have for hauling books," Orana chastised.

"You bought more than Felix and me combined." Dorian said from somewhere Faelyn couldn't see from around the pile of boxes. Faelyn tried to march through the pain, he had to keep carrying the boxes or...

Suddenly, all Faelyn could see was red and felt himself fall.

 _Thudthudthud._

Faelyn collapsed to the ground, breathing hard with boxes all around him. It hurt to move, it hurt to carry the boxes and Faelyn had to fight to just stay on all fours. Red was creeping across his plain white shirt.

A passerby tsked at his clumsiness and turned up her nose. "Dirty knife-ears, aren't even good for shopping."

"Do not begin your lectures, Orana." Dorian said, moving to Faelyn's side.

"Dorian, be careful," Orana's words were full of a careful warning that Faelyn didn't understand, "I'll stack the boxes again, but Felix needs to go get another slave to move them. Lousy knife ear, I told you to be careful with those!"

Dorian helped Faelyn roughly to his feet, and held Faelyn by the collar. Dorian shook Faelyn, but it just seemed like a stream of slurs and nonsense. Faelyn was just glad that being lifted up like this put less pressure on his muscles.

"I'm sorry, sir. I'll be more careful, sir," Faelyn said, half delirious from pain. He was grateful that his time among the shems had taught him how to appease them.

Dorian released Faelyn and Faelyn moved to help Orana with the boxes. He didn't really notice that the crowd around them seemed placated by the display. Orana moved close to Faelyn and quickly used a spell to clean up the small amount of blood on his shirt. It was so covert a spell that Faelyn didn't notice it until they'd finished. He made a quick little gesture in hand-speak that he'd seen amongst alienage elves and the deaf to thank her.

Orana looked at him but didn't respond to him. He assumed that she understood his intentions behind the gesture.

Felix quickly arrived with a human man that he didn't bother to introduce and between the man and Faelyn the two moved the shopping haul back to the Pavus house. Felix and Orana left for elsewhere once they arrived, and the human male with their clothes left. Faelyn briefly wondered what the man's name was and why he was a slave.

Dorian took half the boxes once they were inside. Faelyn was surprised by the sudden gesture and nearly upset the stack yet again.

"Sorry about the whole act earlier, it's not fashionable to treat elves with respect, after all." The way he said it had half a laugh in it, as though it was a sad joke that only he understood fully. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"No, I misjudged my recovery," was Faelyn's short answer. "It won't happen again."

"Let me know first, if you need to rest we can do that. It's not hard to find a bench here, since the ancients liked benches."

Faelyn looked at Dorian as he led the pair towards a part of the house Faelyn had never been to.

"What? We Tevinters can joke. I do it often, but I suppose I'm not your 'average' Tevinter either."

"I... do not understand you, Mister Pavus."

"Just Dorian, please. I might have hired you, but I much prefer that we treat each other as equals."

"Okay, then. Just Dorian it is."

 **A/N: Sorry about the wait, folks! Became a bit busy and also started playing Undertale. You could say that I was suddenly filled with DETERMINATION to keep carrying on this fic. I love it to bits and we're not even to when things start to get good. Fun Fact: This chapter's title was the working title for this fic. But I figured it didn't convey what I wanted. This title still doesn't either, but I'm open to suggestions.**


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